101 things you wanted to know abou t po tatoe s . . .

. . . bu t were af ra id to ask

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1 Potatoes originated in the Andes mountains of southern Peru and have been cultivated for at least 7000 years. 2 Potatoes became the main part of the

diet of the Incas in Peru and Bolivia.

3 The main objective of the UN International Year of the Potato is to promote the sustainable development of both potato-based systems and the potato industry, as well as to bolster producers’ and consumers’ well-being, as part

of its Millennium Objective to increase food security and reduce poverty.

4 The first record of cultivated potatoes outside South America is their export in 1567 from Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands to Antwerp in Belgium.

5 In Quechua, the language of the Incas, the name for the

potato was “Papa”, a name spread by the Spaniards.

6 The Irish famine was caused because there was literally

nothing left to eat for poor, country people when the fungal disease ‘late blight’ attacked their staple potato crops two years in a row (1845 and 1846).

7 Collectors from the UK went to Mexico in 1938 and South America in 1939 to collect wild and cultivated potato species and bring them back for evaluation

by breeders and to preserve them for future needs.

8 About 219 different wild tuber-bearing Solanum species are found throughout South America, Mexico and the Southern United States of America

9 The Commonwealth Potato Collection – CPC (formerly the Empire Potato Collection) is maintained at SCRI in Dundee. It contains 80 different species of wild potatoes as well as representatives of the cultivated potatoes of South America.

10 The cultivated potatoes of the Andes today are very

similar to the ones the Incas and their predecessors grew and ate.

11 The wild relatives

of the potato contain resistance to most, if not all, potato pests and

diseases.12 In France, potatoes first became popular when Marie Antoinette paraded wearing a crown of potato blossoms.

13 Prussia’s Frederick the Great planted potatoes in his pleasure garden in Berlin. He liked the beauty of the potato flowers.

14 “French fries” were introduced to America when Thomas Jefferson served them at a dinner in the White House.

15 The largest potato ever recorded according to the The Guinness

Book of World Records, was 7 pounds 13 ounces and was grown in 1994 by K.

Sloan from the Isle of Man.

16 In 2005, for the

first time, the developing world’s potato production

outstripped that of the developed

world.

17 Potato Cyst Nematodes (PCN), microscopic worms, are an important pest of potatoes.

There are two species: Globodera rostochiensis (golden cysts) and Globodera pallida (white cysts).

18 Before the end of the sixteenth century, families of Basque sailors began to cultivate

potatoes along the Biscay coast of northern Spain.

19 The Incas used to place raw slices of potato on broken

bones to promote healing.

20 Some people believe you can treat frostbite or sunburn by

applying raw grated potato or potato juice to the affected area.

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21 In 2006, the world produced some 315 million tonnes of

potatoes.22 The terraces where ancient peoples of the Andes grew potatoes are often

spectacular and built frequently with dressed stone by skilled masons.

23 The first account of the potato appears to have been written

by Francisco López de Gómara in 1552.

24 Sir Walter Raleigh introduced potatoes to Ireland in 1589

near Cork on the 40,000 acres of land given to him by Queen Elizabeth I in 1581.

25 The first permanent potato patches in North America were

established in 1719, most likely near Londonderry (Derry), NH.

26 In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space. NASA and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, created the technology with the goal of feeding astronauts on

long space voyages, and eventually, feeding future space colonies.

27 Potatoes contain health promoting carotenoids - a complex class of compound with over 600 types

found in nature with high concentrations in yellow-fleshed potatoes

28 A potato is about 80% water. 29 Britain produces six million tonnes of

potatoes a year involving 3,400 growers 30 The World Catalogue of Potato Varieties 2007 lists 4200

varieties from 101 countries. In addition, CIP (International Potato Center, Lima, Peru) maintains 3527 cultivars native to Latin America.31 Potatoes are pollinated by types of bee that can buzz the flower to collect

pollen by shaking it out of the pores at the end of the anthers.

32 Potato varieties bred at SCRI include Lady Balfour, the

number one organic variety in Britain.

33 The Lady Balfour potato is named after Lady Eve Balfour (Evelyn Barbara Balfour;

1899-1990.) She was an English farmer, educator and pioneer of organic farming. She was a co-founder of the Soil Association.

34 Mayan Gold is the first Phureja type of potato (the second most widely grown type

in the Andes) to be grown commercially in Europe. It has been bred to tuber in our long summer days and has a distinct flavour and texture. It is being

marketed by GreenvaleAP.

35 Research has been carried out at SCRI on ways of increasing vitamin C content in potatoes.

36 More than half of a child’s daily vitamin C is contained in a medium sized baked potato with its skin.

37 SCRI is examining and mapping the genetic basis for complex characteristics of potato using molecular markers to screen for key quality

and nutritional traits.

38 The Potato Eaters is Van Gogh’s first ambitious painting, in which he synthesises his ideas about art and society: he conceived it as a

painting not only of peasants, but for peasants.39 After the

wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Irish coastal

villagers rescued potatoes and planted

them. 40 During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush, (1897-1898) potatoes were practically worth their weight in gold. Potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content

that miners traded gold for potatoes.

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41 There are two contending theories about what part of South America the European potato came from….one states Chile, the other Peru.

42 Historical and genetic evidence suggests that the potato reached India not very much later than Europe, probably taken there by the Portuguese.

43 The Incas used lacquered wooden

beakers called ‘keros’. Some of them depict the cultivation of

potatoes.

44 The international potato trade in

2005 was estimated to be worth six billion dollars.

45 The pre-Inca peoples of the Andes initially collected and

ate wild ‘papas’ (potatoes) before learning to select the best for cultivation.

46 Potatoes are crucial to the food security of hundreds of millions of

people in the developing world, where annual consumption has risen from 9 kg/capita in

1961-63 to around 21kg today.

47 The major UK potato suppliers, Branston, recently donated £9,000 to the 12,000-hectare Potato Park near Cuzco in Peru, where local people are managing and protecting local genetic

resources. They’ve helped fund a new screenhouse facility, which will enable scientists and farmers to start restoring native potato varieties.

48 Wild potatoes contain glycoalkaloids, toxic

compounds, of which the most prevalent are solanine and chaconine.

49 Norway, Sweden and Denmark are said to have received their

first potatoes from Scotland by the mid-eighteenth century.

50 Climate change may threaten the survival of many of the wild

relatives of the domestic potato: it is forecast that as many as 12 percent will become extinct as their growing conditions deteriorate.

51 The potato is included in the multilateral system established under UN Food and Agriculture

Organisation’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

52 The record for potato peeling is held by 5 women, who in 1992 peeled 1064 pounds of potatoes in 45 minutes using only kitchen knives. 53 The 70’s rockers Jethro Tull

derived their name from an agriculturalist and potato tool inventor of the

same name who lived during the 1700’s.

54 Earlier this year Marks and Spencers began selling bags

of the SCRI Phureja potato variety Inca Dawn.

55 In England the potato made the transition from a vegetable grown in small quantities

for the gentry to a major food of the common people during the period 1765 to 1775, some 200 years after

it was first introduced.

56 Over the last forty years the potato suppliers Greenvale AP have grown to become the UK’s leading supplier of fresh potatoes and were awarded the

Queens Award for Innovation in 2006.

57 Potatoes contain no cholesterol. 58 The British Potato Council is funded through a statutory levy on 3,400

potato growers and potato purchasers. Its mission is to stimulate, develop and promote the British potato industry to consumers and customers.

59 The British Nutrition Foundation says

that one of the keys to healthy weight-loss is to eat “more carbohydrate-rich foods such as potatoes”.

60 Potatoes should be stored in a cool dark dry, ventilated area to avoid greening. Remove them from plastic bags and don’t

store them in the fridge or near strong smelling foods such as onions.

61 There are three potato seasons to look forward to during the year. Earlies, second earlies and maincrop.

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63 When potatoes are exposed to either artificial or natural light, they can develop a green colour due to

chemical changes. These make those green bits of the potato unsuitable for consumption.

64 In the early 1950s, the J.R. Simplot Company developed the frozen French fry, a product that

was perfectly suited for the quick preparation needed for the expanding fast food industry.

62 The person who converted

potatoes into today’s well known potato crisps was a Native American George Crum in 1853. Potato crisps originated in New England as one man’s variation on the French-fried potato.

81 In Zambia, they claim an African potato can cure almost anything. The plant is only grown in Mkushi, in the north of the country. Traditional healers use it to treat a range of illnesses.

65 Many current cultivars contain the potato cyst nematode resistance gene, H1, that originated from a CPC accession of cultivated Andean potatoes.

66 The first potatoes brought to Europe in the sixteenth century

were unpopular and thought to cause madness, leprosy and worse.

67 Larry Zuckerman has published a

book called: “The Potato: the Story of How a Vegetable Changed History.”

68 According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization global potato production

is on the rise, increasing 4.5 per cent annually in the past decade. The potato is the fourth most important food crop in

the world after wheat, maize and rice.

69 Potatoes are an important

crop for Scotland, and it has a reputation for producing good seed potatoes. The total value of the 2006 crop was £180.3 million

70 The first water-colour painting

of a potato is dated 1588 and was sent by Philippe de Sivry, Prefect of Mons in Belgium, to the herbalist Clusius in Vienna in 1589.

71 At one time it was believed

that potato crops were ruined by evil spirits (rather than common pathogens such as late blight.)

72 Weather conditions are important for all crops,

but more so for potatoes. Dry conditions are required at planting

time. Rainfall is important to bulk up tubers, but warm and humid weather also leads to problems

with the disease late blight.

73 One medium banana contains roughly 450 mg. of health promoting potassium But potatoes actually top bananas in potassium content: a

medium baked potato or 20 French fries contain 750 mg.

74 One of Elvis Presley’s favourite dishes was sweet potato

cream cheese pie. (The sweet potato is a very distant relative.)

75 Sir Francis Drake recorded that he obtained potatoes for the first time

by barter with native people of the island of Moche off the Chilean coast in 1578.

76 The first person to manufacture crisps in

the UK was a gentleman called Frank Smith of Smith’s crisps in the

1920’s. Frank Smith opened his first factory in Cricklewood in London.

77 The first deliberate

crossing of potato varieties using artificial pollination was by Knight in England in1807.

78 Scottish-based Taypack Potatoes is a hugely successful, innovative business, supplying potatoes from its modern

site in the heart of Perthshire, to Great Britain, Scandinavia and Europe. It was founded by George Taylor in 1986.

79 There is a recipe for potato wine. It includes among other things: 3 pounds potatoes, 4 pounds sugar, 4 ounces of chopped green or light coloured raisins…

and 2 lemons.

80 About 50% of the UK potato consumption is now from processed products.

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83 At the bottom of the stairs in the Great Hall at Christ Church College, Oxford, there are the words ‘no peel’ burned into a door. This ‘graffiti’ dates back to the 17th century when the college doctor prescribed potato peels as a means of

warding off the Black Death. It led to a student riot!

82 Among the events scheduled to commemorate the International Year of the

Potato in 2008 is a global forum on “Potato science for the poor” to be held in Cuzco, Peru, next March.

84 In Ireland amateur distillers mashed up potatoes then

boiled and distilled them to produce the sometimes lethal Poteen (pronounced pocheen).

85 The rapid growth of China’s fast food industry is boosting demand for frozen French fries and other processed potato products,

87 The International Potato Center (known by its Spanish acronym, CIP) has headquarters

in La Molina, outside Lima, the capital of Peru. It was founded in 1971.

88 The first printed illustration of a potato was by the Englishman, John Gerard, in his Herball of

1597, and it has been suggested that Sir Francis Drake brought this potato to England from Cartegena on the coast of what is now Colombia in either 1586 or 1590.

89 The world’s largest potato crisp was produced by the Pringle’s

Company in Jackson, Tennessee in 1990. It measures 23˝ x 14.5˝.

90 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has a potato insect

reference collection which includes 32,000 aphid specimens

91 Hash browns or hashed browns are a simple potato

preparation in which potato pieces are pan-fried after being diced, riced, shredded, or julienned.

92 There are more than 20 widely-

grown potato varieties in Britain with Maris Piper in the number one slot.

93 The state of Idaho is the biggest producer of potatoes in the USA.

94 A poisonous potato fruit was used to commit murder in the Dorothy

Sayers short story “The Leopard Lady”.

95 One medium potato supplies, on average, 30mg vitamin C, nearly as much as in a glass of tomato juice and 1.5mg iron, which is around

the same amount as in an egg.

96 In 2004 Johnny Vegas starred in a film with the unlikely title “Sex Lives of the Potato Men”

97 A particularly knobbly Andean variety of potato has a name which means in Quechua ‘Daughter-in-Law’s Bane’. It was used to test the potato peeling ability of marriage candidates.

98 The Mashed Potato is a dance move which was a popular craze in 1962. It was danced to songs such as Dee Dee

Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time”. Also referred to as “mash potato” or “mashed potatoes”, the move vaguely resembles that of the Twist, by Sharp’s fellow Philadelphian, Chubby Checker.

99 China is the world’s largest potato producer, increasing its area given over to the crop

by 30 per cent over the past five years. However the country still imports 70 per cent of its French fries.

100 Potato farmers in the Andes have known for a very long time that a thin sheet of cloud over the stars at the summer

solstice means that potato planting should be delayed. Only recently have scientists realised that they are accurately forecasting an El Nino event.

101 Since the foundation of SCRI’s forerunner, the

Scottish Plant Breeding Station in1920, 32,740 potato crosses have been made

and 72 cultivars released.

86 Hot Potato is a children’s game. It involves players quickly tossing a small object such as a beanbag to each other while music plays.

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